[washadjeffmad]

I had a 1930s edition of a "radio physics" textbook as a child, and because there could be no prior assumptions about exposure or familiarity, it was filled with very complex ideas explained so cohesively and coherently that, well, I could understand.

The author knew that this book was for people who might be as involved in the business of radio as its science or engineering, so they wrote as much about the application across every industry, breaking down the systems to the component level and manufacturers, deployment, and ordering, as they did the design and theory.

I learned how to evaluate a textbook from its structure and style. It certainly wasn't designed for discrete lessons, and the professor would have needed a diverse and practical understanding to teach it effectively.

[commandlinefan]

> complex ideas explained so cohesively

I wonder if the same thing isn't happening with computer science. When I started studying the topic in the late 80's, I was part of the earliest generation that actually did, and everything seemed to be explicitly written with the goal of making sense. Some things (like recursion and pointers) were fundamentally complicated, but they were made as simple as they reasonably could be.

My son is studying computer science in college right now and I look at the way they present the material and it often seems designed to confuse - I'll read it over and then explain it to him the way _I_ was taught it and he'll say, "oh my gosh, why don't they explain it that way?"

[Raidion]

I feel like teaching is mostly a one size fits all endeavor, but people learn and think in different ways, just like a processor is optimized for some operations but not others.

Take simple arithmetic like 12x17. Some people do the long form multiplication (carry the one..), some people say it's 12x10+12x7. Some remember 12x12 from times tables and go 12x12+12x5. Some people make it 24x8+12 => 48x4+12 => 50x4-8+12 etc. Some do it on the abacus in their heads.

All valid, though some are slightly more optimal than others. Good teachers empower alternative solutions and try to help people connect what they already know to what they already understand.

[jasomill]

As someone who only learned multivariable calculus successfully via independent study of exterior differential forms as a result of off-handed comments from the differential geometry professor who taught my first-year calc course, I wholeheartedly agree.

Oh, and 12×17 = 10×17 + 2×17 = 10×17 + 2×10 + 2×7 = 170 + 20 + 14 = 204.

[narrator]

Do you have any ore information on that book? I would like to dig it up at a local library. Is is this one perhaps? https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.16412/page/n9/mode/2up

[BenjiWiebe]

I'd like to know which book it was.